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22 May 2013

Twitter should flow inward

Does anybody remember that one time when everybody put a scrolling Twitter feed on a website because they could? Oh, right, that’s still going on right now. Can anybody really give you a good reason why a Twitter feed belongs on the front page of a company’s or non-profit’s website? I’m not talking about a small simple “follow me” link or button, I mean those bulky, full-on Tweet repeating lists.

At Oxide, almost every client we partner with on a website requests a Twitter feed on their homepage, because they’ve seen it in a zillion places. But we have yet to hear an adequately compelling argument on how a Twitter feed will help achieve the overall goals of a website to convince us to shove one into a design. For us, it all boils down to intended flow of traffic.

The basic argument here is that Twitter should flow inward to your site; not the other way around. If that one (or even the last few) 140-character blurbs actually belongs on your homepage, then it should be in the form of a longer featured blog post or some other permanent facet of your actual site content. You should then be using your Twitter feed to push people to that permanent element, and that should be a one-way transaction. The problem we see is that inevitably those Twitter feeds link off your site back to Twitter, drawing people away. Even if the feed doesn’t link back to Twitter directly, it serves almost entirely as a distraction, and don’t bring anything actually useful to a site design. (Also: simply dropping in a Twitter feed is not an effective way to “keep your site content fresh”.)

twitter-nope

The only argument that I can possibly think of which logically supports the use of an on-site Twitter feed is that you want people jumping away to Twitter to read your feed. Perhaps you’ve somehow found a way to store relevant content within your Twitter feed instead of your actual website and need people to jump out to Twitter to see something that they wouldn’t or couldn’t see after they’ve already been to your site. If so,  then you’re doing the internet wrong.

Look at it this way, if your website is an endpoint or a destination, and Twitter is the highway that gets people to you, why would you provide them with a giant off-ramp away from your destination? As a company, you’re usually building a site in which you need vested interest in order to turn over product or engage a customer in some way. Why shove people out the door into traffic once you have them already?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Ever seen a Twitter feed embedded on a home page that served the goals of the website? Are there situations where the strategy makes sense?


14 May 2013

Omaha Gives! identity

Organized by the Omaha Community Foundation, Omaha Gives! is a 24-hour event, designed to raise as much money as possible for local nonprofits. The model is simple and has been very successful in cities across the nation like Austin, Pittsburgh and even Lincoln, Nebraska. With a minimum donation of $10, anyone in the community can support their their favorite participating nonprofits by donating. It’s the perfect day to give since the charities that get the most support will win matching money and prizes. …


7 May 2013

Five years of Big Omaha branding

Almost five years ago, I was having a beer at Crescent Moon with a man I’d never met before. His name was Jeff Slobotski.

He was pitching me his concept for Big Omaha. He had recently partnered with Dusty Davidson (who I knew from his web development shop Brightmix) to launch Silicon Prairie News, a media site centered around celebrating entrepreneurial efforts in the Midwest. Big Omaha was to be the in-person manifestation of their ideas — an event highlighting regional innovation and entrepreneurship. …


25 Apr 2013

Big Omaha 2013 identity

Oxide is honored to have had the opportunity to work with the fine people over at Silicon Prairie News for all five years of Big Omaha. During this time, the Giant Cow has taken on a variety of forms. From the literal Giant Cow illustrations of year one and two, to the completely conceptual letters to the Cow of year four. For this year, we wanted to capture the feeling of being the next big thing. Of being glamorous and — dare we say — fabulous. …


23 Apr 2013

The multiply effect is a lie

This year’s fabulous Big Omaha website is showcasing a little visual trick. Early on, when Nathan and I were discussing the intended visuals on the site, I failed to notice he was using the multiply effect in Photoshop to achieve the appearance of the red overlays — and he went forward working that into the design. To my dismay, when I went to add the red layers by simply overlaying a slightly transparent layer of red over the top of the cow-skin background, it wasn’t even close. …


18 Apr 2013

Stark wedding logo

Two plus years ago, I was asked to design a wedding logo for couple of friends of mine. This was a particularly unique wedding, which required a unique logo. Ronnie and Jane Stark met while playing hockey in the MCHL, an Omaha adult recreational hockey league. Ronnie had been playing for years and Jane, while only recently beginning, can been seen signing the National Anthem at Omaha Lancer games. Their shared passion for the sport and the place they met was the perfect setting for their ceremony. The wedding took place on ice, at the Motto McLean Ice Arena on March 5th, 2011. …


16 Apr 2013


28 Mar 2013

Never stop learning

I recently had a discussion with one of my professors from Iowa State University. She was asking what skills I felt ISU needed to better teach to prepare students for the real world. Which got me to thinking about the things that I have needed to learn in the past ten months at Oxide. I spent most of my four years learning about typography, proportions, and print design. And while I still utilize those skills, I’ve had to learn how to translate those skills to the web.

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26 Mar 2013

Johnson Deconstruction website

Last week, we announced the launch of the new Johnson Deconstruction website. The site uses a lot of really cool features that make it really responsive. Check it out on all of your devices, mobile to desktop!

Lately, I’ve been brushing up on the practical use of inline SVG (scalable vector graphics) on the web, since every current version of every modern web browser now supports the use of them. With some safety-net fallback images for older browsers (mostly IE), a website can achieve total resolution independence — meaning nothing will degrade visually based on your level of zoom or the pixel density of your screen. …


14 Mar 2013

Zipline Brewing Co. logo refinement

When Oxide designs a logo, we typically go through a lengthy process which includes brand questionnaires, a patented concepting slide process, and weeks of research and sketching. This is all done in attempt to create a memorable logo that’s not only visually appealing, but conceptually captivating as well. Only once we’ve found the solution(s) do we take our concept to the computer. (Many think that this is the only step required to “design”.) And while it’s not the most important step, the visual build of a logo will make or break the overal concept.

Zipline Brewing Co. came to us last year looking for a variety of design work, including packaging (which will be unveiled later this year). All they had was a logo — which in their minds was finished — and a website. Pleased with the existing logo’s concept, we simply asked if we could take a look at a refinement. The guys at Zipline were up for it, so we started looking at where we could make some tweaks. …